For Those Doing NaNoWriMo: Welcome to Hell

Hi. If you are reading this, you are most likely about to take a month long journey through the depths of Hell.

Welcome.

We need more visitors here in our little corner of hell.

Hell, you might think, is unpleasant. True, yes, at times.

Some hells reek of monotony. Their colors are dull and grey. Lackluster, some might say. Others might say lifeless.

Others are torturous, causing a pain from which you’ll find no reprieve.

Our hell is different. Our hell is terrifying.

It is exhilarating.

It will make your skin tingle and your eyes dance and it will make every single breath you take feel much too short.

Ah yes, our hell.

At its best, it is absolutely glorious: vivid and rich and unyielding in its vastness. It will make you feel more alive than you have ever felt before.

You will wander through glistening courts and sprawling fields and bustling cities and you will revel in a majesty that you may never see again.

You will, at least for a brief moment, experience the absolutely all-consuming and addictive joy of being the king of your own personal hell.

But, inevitably, you will tumble and fall. You will suffer tragedies. Your arms will burn and your eyes will sting and every part of your body will cry its objection.

It will beg for your surrender.

Still, you will strive to reach the top once more, struggle to reach the ecstasy that you’ve tasted and lost.

And it will be a grueling climb.

It will make you want to sob until your throat is raw and your eyes run dry. It will make you want to peel off your skin and gouge out your eyes.

But you will power through, fight your way through a world of never-ending possibilities. (Never-ending, of course, with the presumption that you are willing to look.)

You will claw your way back to the moment where you ruled with absolute, unparalleled power.

And every single excruciating moment will have been worth it.

So yes, come. Come with caution in your heart, but come nonetheless.

Because when you finally make it to the end of your stay—finish your month long journey through obscurity and victory, heartaches and delights, agony and treachery and pure, unadulterated beauty—you will yearn for the day when you can once again explore the hell that you have come to call home.

NaNoWriMo is an annual event where people all over the world try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. For more information, go to www.nanowrimo.org